


The Healing Process

by astaria51 (winged)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Bullying, Dark, Depression, Gen, Magic, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-07-26
Updated: 2005-07-26
Packaged: 2017-10-27 22:52:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winged/pseuds/astaria51
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luna's pain is private, and surprisingly human, and easily cleaned up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Healing Process

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for self-injury.

Magic can heal a physical wound. That much is clear. It's quite good at it, actually – charming away abrasions and reforming broken limbs. Yes. And sometimes, with training and patience, magic can heal a damaged mind. But magic, you have learned, is no good at emotional hurt.

You tried, in the beginning, not to be emotionally hurt. You smiled at their jeers, and you told yourself you didn't need anyone. But that made it worse.

What do you do when something becomes too much to bear?

You learned, at Hogwarts, that if you are faced with an insurmountable danger, you can incapacitate it or you can transfigure it into something manageable. You've already tried incapacitating it. Charms and healing spells proved useless. Euphoric potions fooled your mind temporarily, and when they died away, you felt more hurt and alone than ever – awakened to the reality that the only happiness in life was a lie.

The reality... Your life was lived from day to day, making cheery observations to those who thought you crazy. Your concept of friends were a motley group there for another purpose, disbanded now and scattered – and the few who still claimed you as a friend laughed at your beliefs openly, or had no time between their romances.  
Sometimes the knowledge hurts so much that you feel all of you threatens to spill, to split apart. One day, you wonder why you don't just shatter into shards, sharp-edged pieces that rattle on the stone floor.

Nothing keeps you together – but there is one option left untried. Why not? Why not transform this into something manageable?

 _Magic can heal a physical wound._

You stand alone in Ravenclaw tower, tears flooding your eyes, dragging your wand across your arm and watching the skin separate, part like some strange seashell, smooth and pink. The pain makes you gasp a little, but you can feel the tension in your stomach rise to the surface, and you do it again, harsher, gritting your teeth against the pain. You cross the first line with another, and another, and soon you're breathing hard, fixatedly watching these thin lines fill with red and spill over, red rivers tracing your arm.

You weren’t sure you would bleed. For some reason it seems too much like the others. Too much like those who taunt you. You weren't sure you were the same species. It's reassuring, somehow. You're oddly calm, watching it. It's beautiful, this human process, like trees growing. The red makes you think vaguely of Ginny's hair, or the sky at sunset, or loss.

You don't hurt nearly as bad inside, although the cuts sting painfully.

The blood's dripping onto the floor, and you retrace your wand over your arm. The cuts disappear, a pleasant tingly sensation moving through your arm as the skin re-heals, and you clean the blood from the floor with a flick.

This is your comfort. Your wounds can be healed, if only temporarily. For the moment, you are back in your own head; if a little empty inside.

You think for a moment, of the Silver-haired Dranefei, from Bulgaria. They have no blood, and when they are mortally wounded, leak their souls. You wonder if you can be distantly related.


End file.
